The organization that manages the British royal family’s art collection received an insurance payment of £3 million, about $4 million, after thieves stole two of its artifacts that were on loan to a Paris museum, the organization has disclosed.
The two pieces, both elaborate snuff boxes that were originally used to hold powdered tobacco, included one that was encrusted with almost 3,000 diamonds and another that was decorated with gold and depicted the birth of the Roman goddess Venus.
Both had been on loan to the Musée Cognacq-Jay in Paris for its “pocket luxury” exhibition, which opened in March last year with a collection of opulently decorated historical fashion accessories. But on the morning of Nov. 20, according to the Paris police, robbers carried out a violent daytime heist in front of visitors and employees.
A report in the French daily Le Monde outlined how the robbers sped into the museum’s courtyard on scooters and threatened a security guard with an ax before smashing a display case and grabbing several of the items inside.
The two royal snuff boxes were found to be among the stolen artifacts, according to the museum. They were on loan from the Royal Collection Trust, which controls the royal family’s art collection, and the trust’s annual financial report revealed the resulting £3 million insurance payout.
“During the year, an insurance settlement was received in respect of snuff boxes stolen whilst on loan to the Musée Cognacq-Jay,” the report said, adding that the money had been placed into a fund “to be used for the enhancement of the Collection.”
Also taken in the robbery were two snuff boxes belonging to the Louvre Museum in Paris and three that were on loan to the Victoria and Albert Museum of London, according to the trust.
The trust’s website details how European jewelers began to make luxurious boxes in the 1600s as the practice of using snuff became increasingly fashionable, and the two stolen artifacts were part of a wider collection of such items held by British royals.
One of the stolen boxes dates from the 1700s and was previously owned by Russia’s ruling Romanov family, but was confiscated by the Soviet authorities after the revolution and was eventually purchased by Queen Mary, King Charles III’s great-grandmother. The Royal Collection Trust describes it as a “spectacular bloodstone box” and one of the finest German-made boxes of its kind.
The other stolen box was given to King George V as a birthday present in 1920, and is made of gold and lapis lazuli, with an onyx cameo depicting the birth of Venus, according to the trust’s website.
The two boxes and the other artifacts stolen in the heist have not been recovered — and it is not the first time that thieves have targeted the Musée Cognacq-Jay.
In March 1937, The New York Times reported that several 18th-century gold snuff boxes and items of jewelry had been taken by a gang who smashed their way into a glass display case.
On that occasion, the suspects were described as a “blond young woman and an elderly woman, and a bewhiskered, decorated man.”
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